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 The Supreme Court of New Jersey.

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in their temperaments, and sluggish in all pering the stern demands of an out raged law with mercy, and above all as a their movements, but they were tenacious of just and unbiassed judge. His judgments their rights, and once aroused never let go their grip. These characteristics made them the are sound, and bear the test of severe criti cism; his opinions are marked by a clear, lucid most stubborn of litigants. A Bergen County style, forcibly expressed, and bear the marks lawsuit was a synonym for a long and bitter legal battle. In the beginning of the pres of research and labor. He reasons well, ex presses himself strongly and pointedly, and ent century and down almost to 1850 the old lawyers from Newark regularly attended each is always evidently swayed by a strict adhe

term of the court in rence to duty. His that county, and rarely character as a jurist ... failed to be retained in and as a citizen may some important cause. be summed up in one The conditions of trade single homely phrase : and of commerce ma it is all rounded. terially changed, how Manning M. Knapp ever, after the revul was born in Bergen sion of 1837, and the County in 1823, and volume of legal busi was licensed as an at ness was largely di torney in 1846 and as minished before Mr. a counsellor in 1850. Knapp came to the He began his practice bar. Besides, Bergen at Hackensack, the had parted with a large county town of Ber part of its territory in gen, where he has al the formation of Pas ways" resided. saic and Hudson coun Bergen County is, ties. The courts, nev and always has been, ertheless, were kept largely an agricultural busy, and lawyers were county, and its citi needed to bring suits, zens mostly of Dutch conduct trials, and descent. The first protect the property emigrants, who were CHARLES GRANT GARRISON' and interests of their of this stock, came clients. The chances to the new county of success for the young lawyer when he in the early part of the seventeenth cen opened his office at Hackensack seemed tury, and were soon followed by large num problematical, but he did succeed and ob bers of the same race. At first the set tlements were on and near the Hudson tained a large practice. The stolid and River, but gradually they spread into the slow citizens of Bergen were discriminating rich valleys of the Hackensack and the enough to understand and appreciate the other streams intersecting the county, and merits of the rising attorney, and intrusted there these Hollanders built their quaint, him with their business. His practice in substantial dwellings. As their substance creased and extended into the higher courts. increased, they jostled one another in their In January, 1875, he was nominated and various interests, but being law-abiding confirmed as an Associate Justice of the sought remedy for real or fancied injury Supreme Court. He took his seat at the by legal measures. They were phlegmatic February term of that court, but does not